Wake up, Maggie

September is the real New Year. It isn’t cluttered by holidays or solstice celebrations or turkey. The ritual of returning to school over several years imprints upon us profound anticipation, stirrings of anxiety and for some a bit of sadness that lingers throughout our lifetimes.

For September is about new beginnings and a fresh start. Whether one attends school or not—whether we are looking for a fresh start or not—we are gathered up in the collective rise to attention. We all shift posture a bit—sit up a bit straighter, a bit taller, a bit more alert. Summer is over; time to get back to those tasks and jobs you’ve put off for a couple of months. Too soon to prepare for the coming winter, but not too soon to finish the things you  said you would do before the snow arrived. Unlike the other, lesser, New Year, September is a quieter—more thoughtful, more reflective— new beginning. If ever resolutions, or agreements with oneself, to engage in new behaviours were to take hold—it is surely this New Year they ought to be made.

It is also the time of year when the County reaches for a sweater and rediscovers the textured beauty of this community. Summer guests have gone home; the crowds have subsided. Main Street is less congested. Yet in many ways it is in September the County reveals a different side to its richly coloured cultural showcase.

In music—this weekend Steven Page, once the lead man of the Barenaked Ladies, now well established in a solo career, takes to the Regent Theatre stage in support of an organization that works with children with mental health issues and challenges. The kind and gracious residents of Wellington on the Lake and their developer and property manager have underwritten the event to ensure the children assisted by the Building Positive Horizons Foundation get the care and support they need.

With the Ladies, Page et al, filled concert halls and arenas around the world. On Saturday Steven Page will spend New Year’s in Picton— singing, talking and entertaining a very lucky crowd.

The following week the Prince Edward County Music Festival ushers in eight days of sumptuous classical music at venues—some surprising— across the County. On Friday, September 14, CBC and NPR broadcaster Eric Friesen provides a preview of the weeklong event at Books & Company and presents a performance by the New Orford String Quartet featuring Stephane Lemelin on piano.

The Quartet performs at The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Picton on Saturday and Sunday. A percussion quartet, billed as Bangers and Smash, performs at St Mary Magdalene on Tuesday. Then on Thursday the Festival will feature a full production of Mozart’s opera Cosi fan tutte.

On Friday, the lush gardens at Oeno Gallery provide the setting for the Penderecki String Quartet, one of the most celebrated chamber ensembles in the world. On Sunday the quartet moves indoors to St. Mary Magdalene to close the week of music.

September is also the time of year when artists and craftspersons in the County swing open their doors to invite visitors to prowl the places where they work and create. The Prince Edward County Studio Tour runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday September 21-23.

If not music or art, perhaps the thrill of speed will get your motor running. The third annual Gravity Fest lures street luge and longboard racers from around the world on September 14 and 15, to propel themselves down the slope of Macaulay Mountain, rounding a 90-degree turn before emptying them into Delhi Park in Picton.

And, speaking of speed, junior hockey returns in September as the Wellington Dukes and Picton Pirates embark on fresh new seasons.

On the final weekend of September, Taste the County celebrates the rich harvest as well as the growing diversity of produce, wine and spirit offerings available only here.

And just around the corner we get ready to put on our running shoes for the County Marathon—getting ready for its ninth year. The day we gather to stand in awe of the giant pumpkins is also just few short weeks away.

There is much to see and do this New Year month in Prince Edward County. It is time to put away the Algonquin chair and discover what the County has prepared for you.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca